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The Stench of Death; Fears of Being Buried Alive

A Rescuer is Rescued.

Special to The Great War Project

(29-31 July) The deadlock continues on the Gallipoli Peninsula in northwest Turkey.

The defending Turks and the attacking allied troops of Britain, France, Australia and New Zealand dig miles of barbed-wire protected trenches. This transforms the landscape and brings stalemate to the war for Gallipoli.

The scream and shudder of artillery is a constant for both sides, but they both find new and more effective means of killing.

Allied troops dug in at Gallipoli, circa 1915.

Among them, digging mines under the enemy’s trenches. “To kill from below,” in the words of historian Eugene Rogan.

According to Rogan’s account of the fight for Gallipoli, one French soldier recalls later that he “was awakened around midnight, his ear to the hard ground in his dugout, by the distinct sound of digging in the ground beneath him.”

“The one thing I fear is to end my days blown sky high over the trenches.”

It is no surprise that similar fears infect the Turkish side as well. One Turkish officer who keeps a diary “was more afraid,” according to Rogan, “of being buried alive by an explosion than of being blown sky high.”

“There is no worse death than that,” the Turkish officer writes. “My God, spare everyone from such a fate.”

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Buried Alive or Burned, Many Die in Fight for Mine Crater

Special to The Great War Project

(26-28 July) Despite the deadlock on the “quiet” Western Front, there are still occasional savage clashes. Some 300 soldiers die each day.

One attack of particular note is the battle in southern Belgium for the Hooge Crater.

It takes five and a half weeks of digging before the British can lay a mine near the town of Hooge (pronounced HOO-J). As they dig one tunnel collapses, and a second has to be excavated.

The Hooge crater, 1915.

The crater, reports historian Martin Gilbert, is the result of a huge mine explosion that precedes a British attack on German trenches. After the explosion, the crater left is 120 feet wide and twenty feet deep.

Among the casualties, at least ten British soldiers die when they are hit by debris from the explosion.

“Ferocious struggles took place between the confronting armies,” reports Gilbert.

“A crater such as this was a prized objective,” observes Gilbert, “giving as it did an element of shelter to the troops whose army captured it, and a relatively protected spot from which to fire on the enemy.”

The Germans use extraordinary means to prevent the British from seizing the crater.

“The Germans made use of their dreaded heavy mortar shell,” according to Gilbert, “known to the British as ‘Minnie’ or ‘Moaning Minnie.’”

“This was the most alarming frightfulness that our fellows had as yet knocked up against,” writes one British officer present during the attack. “Apart from the number of people it had blown to bits, the explosions were so terrific that anyone within a hundred yards’ radius was liable to lose his reason after a few hours.”

According to this officer, several men “had to be sent down the line in a state of gibbering helplessness.”

Making matters worse, according to Gilbert, none of the men involved in this attack and others nearby had fought in that part of the front line before. It is unfamiliar ground.

Nasiriya Falls to British; Eye al-Kut Next

Ottoman Forces Retreat in Face of British Juggernaut

Special to The Great War Project

(23-25 July) The British offensive in southern Mesopotamia (now Iraq) gains another victory with the fall of Nasiriya.

British and Indian troops take control of the city on this date a century ago.

A British boat bridge at Nasiriya on the Euphrates, summer 1915.

The success of the British offensive in Mesopotamia – and the weakness of Turkish resistance — encourage the British Expeditionary Force to probe deeper into the desert territory, despite the severe heat, disease, and the logistical challenge as supply lines lengthen to the breaking point.

The next target is the town of Kut.

The British offensive gains support from the indigenous Arab population of southern Mesopotamia. All spring and into the summer of 1915…,

Arab civilians rise up in open revolt against the occupying Ottoman forces.

We created a new virtual exhibition to commemorate the First World War. The exhibition guides you through the Emperor Franz Joseph’s manifestos, from announcements for mobilisation, to administering shortages, to dealing with prisoners of war and refugees. The big influence of the First World War on children is presented in remarkable drawings and letters by students in the chapter “My dear Pupils”. The exhibitions ends with a selection of photographs from the front, the hinterland and life in the field.

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“The Story Of The Great European War Told By Camera, Pen And Pencil” was the subtitle of The War Illustrated, a magazine published in London publication by William Berry (later owner of The Daily Telegraph). The first issue date was August 22, 1914, eighteen days after the United Kingdom declared war on Germany. The magazine continued until 1919, with a peak circulation of 750,000 (and was revived in 1939 during the Second World War).

The issues were later packaged into books (all online at the Internet Archive: see list below). “Volume I. The First Phase” featured articles Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (“How the Boer War Prepared Us for the Great War”) and H. G. Wells:

The cause of a war and the object of a war are not necessarily the same. The cause of this war is the invasion of Luxemburg and Belgium. We declared war because we were bound by treaty to declare war. We have been pledged to protect the integrity of Belgium since the kingdom of Belgium has existed. If the Germans had not broken the guarantees they shared with us to respect the neutrality of these little States we should certainly not be at war at the present time.—H. G. Wells, “Why Britain Went to War”, The War Illustrated: Volume I

BBC News is used to reporting breaking news around the world. It’s what we do, part of the reason for our very existence. So if there were to be an assassination of a prominent European leader today, we would want to be there, reporting live. And audiences expect to consume breaking news in a live blog environment which is why we wanted to experiment with revealing history in this way.

This was the idea behind 1914 Live as the BBC’s First World War season reaches the first significant anniversary. We would use all the techniques of breaking news in 2014 to report on events from Sarajevo 100 years ago, particularly the BBC’s Live format.—BBC, “1914 Live: History retold as breaking news”

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The Great War killed 10 million people, redrew the map of Europe, and marked the rise of the United States as a global power. Here are 40 maps that explain the conflict — why it started, how the Allies won, and why the world has never been the same.

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The Reuters gallery, titled “Guns, Gas Masks and Pigeons”, unveils some recently found photos from a private collection. The images picture the “more unfamiliar aspects of the war, from squadron athletics to pigeons used to send messages at the Front,” including a “sequence of images, showing a German U-boat sinks an Allied merchant vessel.”

Nasiriya Falls to British; Eye al-Kut Next

Ottoman Forces Retreat in Face of British Juggernaut

Special to The Great War Project

(23-25 July) The British offensive in southern Mesopotamia (now Iraq) gains another victory with the fall of Nasiriya.

British and Indian troops take control of the city on this date a century ago.

A British boat bridge at Nasiriya on the Euphrates, summer 1915.

The success of the British offensive in Mesopotamia – and the weakness of Turkish resistance — encourage the British Expeditionary Force to probe deeper into the desert territory, despite the severe heat, disease, and the logistical challenge as supply lines lengthen to the breaking point.

The next target is the town of Kut.

The British offensive gains support from the indigenous Arab population of southern Mesopotamia. All spring and into the summer of 1915…,

Arab civilians rise up in open revolt against the occupying Ottoman forces.

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The rifle volley shattered the quiet in the cemetery and made me jump. Immediately, the synchronized snick of bolts being worked, empty shells clinking on the ground, and the order, “Ready, fire!” and another cracking volley.

I was ten at the time.

I scrambled between adult legs to snatch one of the still warm brass casings. I hardly noticed that the volley was being fired over the grave of my great uncle, Theodore Williams, who was killed in WWI.

Theodore Colley Williams

Each year of my 1940’s childhood in tiny Thomaston, Maine, a military unit along with marching band formed up on Armistice Day (Nov. 11) and marched through town to the cemetery. I thrilled to this little martial spectacle. The street was lined with crowds, and we kids ran along beside, dodging through grown-ups wearing red paper poppies, the symbol of remembrance of those who died in the Great War. (Not until 1954 was Armistice Day changed to Veteran’s Day).

My great aunt, Theodore Williams’ sister, lived with us and told me that her brother had been killed in the war, but she provided no details, and I didn’t pay much attention. This was shortly after WWII ended, and my best friend and I were engrossed in playing with a trunk full of Wehrmacht memorabilia brought back by his wounded brother. And movies like John Wayne’s The Sands of Iwo Jima had focused my interest on WWI’s sequel.

But as we embarked on The Great War Project, I began to wonder about the death of this great uncle I never knew.

It turns out that he was involved in two of the most significant battles of the war. One of them was the first major engagement fought by Americans and the second, in which he was killed, is viewed by many historians as the hinge point in the war.